THE GORGON [1964 / 2020] [Blu-ray] [UK Release]
‘THE GORGON’ Petrifies The Screen With Horror!
Combining the Gothic flourishes of their hugely popular ‘Dracula’ and ‘Frankenstein’ films, but this time taking inspiration from Greek myth. ‘THE GORGON’ concerns a series of mysterious deaths in the small German town of Villandorf, in which the victims are turned to stone...
Reuniting the Hammer “dream team” of director Terence Fisher and iconic stars Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, ‘THE GORGON’ is one of Hammer Film Productions most complex and intriguing films of the period.
FILM FACT: ‘THE GORGON’ was based on a story submitted to Hammer Film Productions by their Canadian fan, J. Llewellyn Divine. Director John Gilling and producer Anthony Nelson Keys expanded on J. Llewellyn Divine's outline, developing it into a screenplay. For the role of the monster, former ballerina Prudence Hyman was recruited because the monster was supposed to float gracefully like a wraith.
Cast: Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Richard Pasco, Barbara Shelley, Michael Goodliffe, Patrick Troughton, Joseph O'Conor, Prudence Hyman (The Gorgon), Jack Watson, Redmond Phillips, Jeremy Longhurst, Toni Gilpin, Joyce Hemson, Alister Williamson, Michael Peake, Peter Evans (uncredited), Fred Haggerty (uncredited), Patrick Halpin (uncredited), Arthur Howell (uncredited), Sally Nesbitt (uncredited), Jim O'Brady (uncredited), Bill Sawyer (uncredited) and Fred Stroud (uncredited)
Director: Terence Fisher
Producer: Anthony Nelson Keys
Screenplay: John Gilling (screenplay) and J. Llewellyn Devine (based on an original story)
Composer: James Bernard
Cinematography: Michael Reed, B.S.C. (Director of Photography)
Image Resolution: 1080p (Technicolor)
Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
Audio: English: 1.0 LPCM Mono Audio
English: 2.0 Dolby Digital Stereo Audio
Subtitles: English SDH
Running Time: 83 minutes
Region: All Regions
Number of discs: 1
Studio: Columbia Pictures / Hammer Film Productions / INDICATOR Powerhouse Films
Andrew’s Blu-ray Review: With the film ‘THE GORGON’ [1964] the Hammer Film Productions had just about exhausted the classical canon movie monsters and were casting about for new properties to give the Gothic treatment.
‘THE GORGON’ was based upon the Greek myth of Perseus and Medusa, but transplanted the action from Greece to Vandorf in Hammer Film Productions vision of turn of the century middle Europe allowing the ever budget conscious production designer Bernard Robinson to reuse the existing sets from the film ‘The Evil of Frankenstein’ [1964]
The legend, as we discover later in the film, is that Magaera, is one of the two sisters of Medusa that fled to the village of Vandorf after Perseus had slain Medusa. As the film opens a young woman Sacha Cass [Tony Gilpin] has been turned to stone, but Dr. Namaroff [Peter Cushing] of the Vandorf Medical Institute is in collusion with the local police chief Inspector Kanof [Patrick Troughton] has covered up the mysterious death up claiming that Bruno Heitz [Jeremy Longhurst], the woman’s lover, must have murdered her and then committed suicide.
Convinced that his son Bruno Heitz was innocent, Professor Jules Heitz [Michael Goodliffe] arrives in the village of Vandorf to investigate, but ends up being turned to stone himself when he encounters Megaera aka The Gorgon [Prudence Hyman] as he noses around Vandorf’s abandoned Borski Castle. As Professor Jules Heitz slowly petrifies he does manage to get off a letter to his other son Paul Heitz [Richard Pasco]. Arriving in Vandorf to investigate his father’s death, Paul Heitz in love with Dr. Namaroff’s nurse Carla Hoffman [Barbara Shelley] without realising that she is really Magaera in human form.
Then Paul Heitz finds himself getting partially petrified when he catches a glimpse of Magaera and ends up in Dr. Namaroff’s hospital. Dr. Namaroff of course is also in love with Carla Hoffman, so he continues to deny the existence of “The Gorgon” and tries to warn Paul Heitz off. Then the assistance arrives in the form of Professor Karl Meister [Christopher Lee] from Leipzig University.
Paul Heitz arranges to hopefully elope with Carla Hoffman but is forced to flee his house when Dr. Namaroff sends the police turn up to arrest him. Making for Borski Castle Paul finds Dr. Namaroff is already there waiting to kill Magaera. Naturally they end up fighting before Magaera gives the pair of them the hard rock stare, but Magaera reckons without Prof. Karl Meister having recovered Dr. Namaroff’s sabre, creeping up behind her and giving her the chop. As Magaera’s head drops to the floor, something really dramatic happens and all is revealed.
Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing carried the Hammer Film Productions film with their extraordinary flair for all things bloody and icky. However, I believe I also must point out the acting ability of some of Hammer Film Productions more minor players. I’m talking mostly about Barbara Shelley here. The Hammer Film Productions girls are stereotypically picked to be in the films because of their huge… er… big assets, and generally have no acting skills whatsoever. Not only was Barbara Shelley very convincing in her role as the main female lead, and Barbara Shelley was a pure pleasure to watch.
‘THE GORGON’ film has many of the familiar tropes of Hammer Film Productions Gothics, including a great score by James Bernard and as such is a fairly solid example of the studio’s distinctive look of the film. ‘THE GORGON’ film has the most striking image in the film and is the shot where Barbara Shelley appears to Richard Pasco in the castle ruins – she seen standing in a coat with a fur hood and the coat being a deliberate symbolic tipping of the hand as to her real identity, while around her a castle of Grecian splendour lies in ruins, strewn with autumnal leaves, and behind is a painted backdrop of the night sky. It is an image that appears almost as though out of a classical painting in the extraordinary beauty and richness of its colours. The climax is also effective, despite the unconvincing manifestation of the snake-headed Gorgon and the even less convincing severed snake heads.
‘THE GORGON’ is one of Hammer Film Productions most curious films and especially from the ace director, Terence Fisher. There is a well-structured script that shuffles a strong hand of surprise twists and turns, unlike the straight line most Hammer Film Productions scripts tended to go in. What also makes ‘THE GORGON’ fascinating is the number of things it has going on in it beneath the surface. There is the triangle between Richard Pasco, Barbara Shelley and Peter Cushing, which is conducted with some subtlety. Even the casting of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee is a deliberate reversal of the roles the two usually played in Hammer Film Productions films and Christopher Lee this time plays the commanding straight-arrow savant and Peter Cushing the suspicious doctor – which sets up some unusual resonances.
Many of the recurrent themes that preoccupied Hammer Film Productions reappear here – particularly the battle between superstition and reason, wherein the forces of reason become the forces of repression battling an evil that threatens everyday society. Never again did Anglo-Horror conduct as potent a version of the feminine monstrous as the one they do with the film ‘THE GORGON.’
If you love Hammer Film Productions films then you will love ‘THE GORGON’ and is in the style of their heyday when they turned out classics such as the film ‘Dracula’ [1958] ‘THE GORGON’ oozes Hammer Film Productions style right from the first minutes of the film, and the pacing is totally perfect starting with a couple of murders right at the start of the film and then ramping up the suspense as to who or what is responsible. Put it simply, the film ‘THE GORGON’ is well directed and that should come as no surprise that it is again by the brilliant and talented director Terence Fisher and he directed other Hammer Film Productions classics films such as ‘The Curse of Frankenstein’ [1957], ‘Dracula’ [1958], ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ [1959] and ‘The Mummy’ [1959] which of course sums up this brilliant and talented director Terence Fisher without a doubt.
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Blu-ray Image Quality – ‘THE GORGON’ film is presented by Columbia Pictures, Hammer Film Productions and INDICATOR Powerhouse Films with a stunning 1080p Technicolor image and equally enhanced with the awesome 1.66:1 aspect ratio and the picture is sharp and clean with absolutely no marks to found anywhere, but most striking is the Technicolor colours that look totally perfect, natural and very sharp image presentation. INDICATOR Powerhouse Films continue with their highest calibre work in a flawless Blu-ray package of this classic Hammer Film Productions film. Definitely gets my highest recommendation!
Blu-ray Audio Quality – ‘THE GORGON’ film by Columbia Pictures, Hammer Film Productions and INDICATOR Powerhouse Films has one standard 1.0 LPCM Mono Audio, but despite this, there is no serious technical anomalies to report with this review. The audio track has been given a superb upgrade and the speech from the actors is superb and you can hear all their syllables. The composed music by James Bernard is totally brilliant, especially for this very spooky horror film and also brings out the dramatic parts of the film, but sadly when you hear the much louder composed film music, it tends to be slightly distorted, and that is the only criticism I have with this part of the overall part of the orchestration. So all in all, this definitely gets a five star rating from me.
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Blu-ray Special Features and Extras:
Original 1.0 LPCM Mono Audio
New and improved English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
Audio Commentary with film experts Kat Ellinger and Samm Deighan: Here the knowledgeable team film experts and up first to introduce themselves is Kat Ellinger who is the Editor in Chief of the “Diabolique” Magazine and co-host of the “Daughters of Darkness” podcast, and next up to introduce themselves is Samm Deighan who is the associate editor of the “Diabolique” Magazine and also co-host of the “Daughters of Darkness” podcast, and are both very excited to be doing this audio commentary for the film ‘THE GORGON.’ They inform us that the film was produced in December 1963 and the shoot lasted from the 9th December, 1963 and was all wrapped up by the 16th January, 1964 and was really classed as a Christmas film. It was finally released on October 1964 in the United Kingdom and also at the same time in America where it was shown as a double bill with the film ‘The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb’ [1964] and ‘THE GORGON’ was the last film to come under the banner of Columbia Pictures, who also use to distribute a lot of the other Hammer Film Productions films in America between 1958 to 1964, which started with ‘The Revenge of Frankenstein’ [1958 ]and on top of all that they also distributed ‘The Quatermass Xperiment’ [1955] film. Kat Ellinger and Samm Deighan feels the Hammer Film Productions films distributed via Columbia Pictures was the most interesting of the Hammer Film Productions films and also their most experimental. One thing I totally 100% dispute with Kat Ellinger and Samm Deighan and their vacuous comment when they say that ‘THE GORGON’ film is a tale about the potentially violent lethal power of female sexuality, wow what a pompous misogynous load of old crap. Kat Ellinger and Samm Deighan give a great deal of praise about the actor Peter Cushing who they feel always gives a brilliant performance in any of his films, but especially in any of the Hammer Film Productions films he appeared in and they also say that Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and Terrence Fisher were the holy trinity for Hammer Film Productions films, and this was their 5th film to all work together. Kat Ellinger and Samm Deighan also give great praise for the actress Barbara Shelley who of course was the staple diet of the Hammer Film Productions films franchise and they also feel Barbara Shelley always gave a brilliant performance whatever character Barbara Shelley played. Kat Ellinger and Samm Deighan feels ‘THE GORGON’ definitely belongs to the “fantastiqué” genre, meaning the fantastic is a subgenre of literary works characterized by the ambiguous presentation of seemingly supernatural forces and director Terence Fisher commented that the film was like a fairy story and feels that is why the film has had an enduring legacy for film fans of this film. Kat Ellinger and Samm Deighan also comment why the film ‘THE GORGON’ has endured, is because of Bernard Robinson’s sublime set designs, who also designed sets for several of Hammer Film Productions films in their heyday, including ‘The Curse of Frankenstein’ [1957], ‘The Abominable Snowman’ [1957], ‘Dracula’ [1958], ‘The Curse of the Werewolf’ [1961] ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ [1962] and ‘Quatermass and the Pit’ [1967] and were a total masterpieces of that type film genre and were also evoking Bernard Robinson’s other worldly sets, like dripping fog, forests and a profuse amount of cobwebs, with glorious touches and of course Bernard Robinson worked on a considerable amount of Hammer Film Productions key films and Bernard Robinson felt that film was a craft, not an art, and the thing that he felt lacking is the films made today and Bernard Robinson felt it was the sense of craftsmanship that made Hammer Film Productions films so popular and on top of all that in 1968 they picked up the Queen's Award for Industry for its success in bringing in American dollars into the United Kingdom. As we come to the end of this audio commentary with Kat Ellinger and Samm Deighan, they wanted to sum up ‘THE GORGON’ film, by saying that Hammer Film Productions were making these types of films for the young teenagers at drive-in cinema establishments and also for the British working class cinema going public, that gave what cinema going public wanted to see over that period in time when they made these very popular gothic horror Hammer Film Productions films. On top of all that director Terrence Fisher set out to make the film ‘THE GORGON’ as a fantastic film, and they feel he succeeded and Hammer Film Productions understood gothic horror and that is why the public felt that these were classic films and although in the past the film ‘THE GORGON’ was derided at the time, but now a new generation are enjoying this Hammer Film Productions film and Kat Ellinger and Samm Deighan feels ‘THE GORGON’ was the best of all the Hammer Film Productions films that were produced over their golden period. So ends this audio commentary and to be honest after an hour I got totally bored with their boring pompous rhetoric and I feel you to will get totally bored after an hour of their pompous over indulging audio commentary, I would of preferred to have had an audio commentary done by either Jonathan Rigby, John Johnston or Patricia MacCormack as they would have been so much more interesting.
Special Feature: HEART OF STONE: Inside ‘THE GORGON’ [2017] [1080p] [1.78:1] [14:01] Here you get to view an in-depth analysis of the film ‘THE GORGON’ that was made by the Hammer Film Productions and to discuss the film we have the experts Jonathan Rigby and John Johnston. They talk in-depth about problems when shooting the film ‘THE GORGON’ and John Gilling who wrote the screenplay unhappy with the changes made by Anthony Hinds to his original script, how Peter Cushing dominates the proceedings as neither its hero or villain, director Terence Fisher's emotional connection to the material, how the film is often unfairly perceived as a whodunit, and much more. Despite being very short, it was very informative and fascinating to hear all about the background problems until the film was finished. We also get a plethora of clips from the ‘THE GORGON’ and we also get to view some rare black-and-white promotional photographs. Contributors include: Claire Louise Amias [Narrator], John J. Johnston [Cultural Historian] and Jonathan Rigby [Author of “English Gothic”].
Special Feature: Hammer’s Women: Patricia MacCormack on Barbara Shelley [2017] [1080p] [1.78:1] [9:28] Academic and author Patricia MacCormack examines the life and career of “the first leading lady of British horror” Barbara Shelley. By the way, Patricia MacCormack is Professor of Continental Philosophy at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge and Chelmsford, brings up some interesting points about the film's narrative and even what's absent from it, and recalls getting up at 2:00am as a child in Australia to watch Hammer films, salutes the performance of Barbara Shelley, and even makes a case for why the dodgy nature of the mechanical snakes on the Gorgon's head make it even more scary. We again get a lot of clips from the film ‘THE GORGON’ and Patricia MacCormack mentions the many important Hammer Film Productions films that Barbara Shelley has appeared in. Thank goodness this was a very short special feature, as I found the Australian Patricia MacCormack totally ghastly, especially the voice and is totally revolting to look at, and I advise anyone to avoid this one totally and cannot understand why INDICATOR Powerhouse Films allowed this to be added to the Blu-ray disc.
Special Feature: Matthew Holness on ‘THE GORGON’ [2017] [1080p] [1.78:1] [14:51] The actor, writer, director and Hammer film fan explores aspects of the film ‘THE GORGON.’ Matthew Holness discusses what he describes as one of Hammer Film Productions bleakest films and its first to have a female monster, with specific focus on director Terence Fisher and the specifics of his direction of the film. Matthew Holness also talks in praise of the director Terence Fisher as well as praises the cinematographer Michael Reed who mad ehe film look really spectacular especially with all the scenes with dark shadows and also praises the set designer who did everything on a tight budget. Despite this special feature is very short, it is still all good stuff.
Theatrical Trailer [1964] [1080p] [1.66:1] [2:47] This is the Original Theatrical Trailer for the film ‘THE GORGON.’ The “terrifying realism” of ‘THE GORGON’ is championed in a really good promotional solid trailer that luckily avoids major spoilers.
Special Feature: Original Promotional Material: Here with this Original Promotional Material, you get to view 103 rare black-and-white and colour slides of promotional items and behind-the-scenes stills, lobby cards, posters and press book scans. To view the promotional material, you have to use the right hand NEXT button on your remote control to advance and navigate the images you view. Press MENU or TOP MENU to leave this special feature.
Special Feature: Comic-strip Adaptation: Here we get to view 36 black-and-white and colour images of this Comic-strip Adaptation of “The Gorgon,” and was written by Scott Goodall and illustrated by Goring & Coyas, and originally appeared in issues of 11 and 12 of the “House of Hammer” magazine between August and September 1977. This has been kindly reproduced by permission of publisher Dez Skinn, and original artwork has been reformatted for your viewing pleasure. To view the Comic-strip Adaptation, you have to use the right hand NEXT button on your remote control to advance and navigate the images you view. Press MENU or TOP MENU to leave this special feature.
Finally, ‘THE GORGON’ is Hammer Film Productions at its best, it has their two biggest star actors with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee backed up by the likes of Barbara Shelley and Patrick Troughton. I consider ‘THE GORGON’ a must see for any horror fan. Powerhouse films have put out yet another terrific Blu-ray release in terms of both picture quality and extras. The picture is sharp and clean with absolutely no marks to found anywhere while the colours look perfect. On to the extras and it’s yet another excellent set from Powerhouse Films with a host of new interviews providing valuable insight into the production and reception that the film received following release. These extras are a must for Hammer Film Productions horror fans. Highly Recommended!
Andrew C. Miller – Your Ultimate No.1 Film Aficionado
Le Cinema Paradiso
United Kingdom
